Connect to the corpus
The Watermark Directory exposes a Model Context Protocol
endpoint at https://watermark.directory/api/mcp. Connect Claude Desktop or any MCP-compatible client to search
and interrogate the investigative record directly.
Claude Desktop setup
Add the following block to your claude_desktop_config.json (find it at
~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json on macOS):
{
"mcpServers": {
"watermark-directory": {
"url": "https://watermark.directory/api/mcp",
"type": "http"
}
}
}Restart Claude Desktop after saving. The watermark-directory server will appear in the MCP server list. No API key is required for the public tier.
Available tools
The public tier exposes 5 tools. All return evidentiary-tagged results — see evidentiary vocabulary below.
| Tool | Description | Required params | Example call |
|---|---|---|---|
search_corpus | Semantic + keyword search over the documentary corpus | query |
|
get_timeline | Dated events filterable by date range and category | — |
|
get_entities | Entity graph: parties, roles, parcels, and relationships | — |
|
get_hypotheses | Boom-origin hypothesis signals per site | — |
|
get_documents | Ingested source documents by collection | — |
|
Rate limits and budget
| Tier | Rate limit | Daily output budget | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|
| Public | 60 requests / hour per IP | 100k tokens / day (shared) | None — open access |
| Keyed | Higher limits | 500k tokens / day (per key) | Authorization: Bearer <token> |
To request a keyed account, submit a tip or correction and mention your research use case. Keyed access is granted to journalists, researchers, and public-interest investigators.
Evidentiary vocabulary
Every result from the corpus carries an evidence tag. These tags encode how strongly the claim is grounded in the documentary record:
[verified]- Directly confirmed in a primary source document — a permit, a recorded deed, meeting minutes, a regulatory filing. The document is in the corpus and the claim is traceable to a specific page.
[inference]- Logically derived from verified facts but not explicitly stated in a source. A reasonable conclusion the record supports, not a claim a document makes directly.
[reference]- Sourced from a secondary or historical reference (published books, surveys, news) rather than a primary instrument. Accurate but one step removed from the primary record.
[open]- A question or gap the record has not yet resolved — an area where the corpus is incomplete or where the evidence is insufficient to draw a conclusion.
When a model queries this corpus, it should surface these tags in its reasoning and not assert
[inference] claims with the same confidence as [verified] ones.
Auto-discovery
The endpoint publishes a /.well-known/mcp.json discovery document. MCP clients that support auto-discovery can find the server without manual configuration.